Blue Neptune
Materials & Process Engineer/Intern
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Job Overview
Blue Neptune · White City, London (on-site) · Starting late August 2026, with some flexibility
Duration: 2 months minimum, with genuine scope to extend
Pay: £1,450/month for 3 days a week - a full-time equivalent of ~£2,400/month (≈£28.9k pro-rata), at or above the London Living Wage
Hours: 3 days a week as standard. We'll consider full-time if required.
Right to work: You need existing right to work in the UK, we can't sponsor visas, but Student and Graduate route visas are fine
About Blue Neptune
Blue Neptune is developing advanced thermal insulation coatings for high gradient applications. Our technology addresses critical thermal management challenges across multiple sectors, including defence, space, aviation, and energy-intensive industries.
As an early-stage deep-tech venture backed by leading accelerators and innovation programmes (including the European Space Agency Business Incubator, Undaunted Greenhouse, and the International Space Accelerator), we're at an exciting inflection point. We're translating cutting-edge materials science into commercially viable solutions that deliver superior, reliable performance for critical assets.
We're a small founding team in a 24-hour lab in White City. You'd be joining at the point where formulation decisions made at the bench directly determine what the company sells
What you'd actually be doing
You'll own a defined experimental workstream end-to-end - formulate, coat, test, analyse, report — and your data will feed straight into architecture decisions.
A realistic first two months:
- Week 1: lab induction, COSHH and PPE sign-off, shadowing a full coating cycle
- Weeks 2–4: running your first formulation screen and building the sample-prep protocol you'll use for the rest of the role
- Weeks 5–8: iterating on coating architecture for thermal performance, adhesion and durability; presenting your results to the founders in weekly technical reviews and writing up a workstream someone else could pick up
Two months is the floor, not the plan. If it's working on both sides we'd like to keep going.
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Across the role you'll:
- Prepare and iterate coating formulations, and screen different configurations
- Apply coatings using lab-scale methods with real attention to thickness control and repeatability
- Prepare and track substrates and samples - cleaning, masking, labelling, traceability
- Run routine characterisation in-house, and prepare samples for external testing at partner facilities
- Analyse the data, spot the trend, and propose the next experiment
- Keep formulation logs and batch records that someone else could pick up and reproduce
- Work safely and tidily, and help keep our lab audit-ready as we move towards customer qualification
- Occasional travel to UK test facilities. Some remote work for analysis and write-ups — but this is a hands-on lab role and you'll be on-site most of the week.
You'll probably thrive here if
- You're studying, or have recently finished, Materials Science, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering or similar
- You've spent real time in a wet lab - university project, research placement, internship - and you handle chemicals safely without being told twice
- You're rigorous: you measure carefully, you write things down, and you can run the same experiment eight times without cutting corners on the ninth
- You're genuinely interested in coatings, ceramics, porous materials or composites; enough that you'd read a paper about them unprompted
- You can explain your results clearly to people who weren't at the bench
Bonus, not required: low-thermal-conductivity materials or ceramics; different coating processes; thermal or mechanical characterisation (TGA/DSC, thermal conductivity, adhesion/pull-off, SEM); shared user-facility experience; a previous startup.
If you tick most of the first list and none of the second, please still apply. We'd rather teach technique than curiosity.
What you get
- Ownership. A workstream that's yours, not someone's leftover data entry.
- Access. You'll work alongside the founders directly - no layers, no handing your data up a chain. Plus exposure to the research institutions and industrial partners validating the technology.
- Room to shape the role. We're small enough that the structure is still fluid. If you're strong at something we didn't ask for, we'd rather find a way to use it than hold you to a job description.
- Sector credibility. Hands-on experience across aerospace, defence, space and industrial decarbonisation, a portfolio you can talk about for the rest of your career.
- Flexibility. 24-hour lab access and flexible hours. We mean it about sustainable pace: we're ambitious, but we don't run on all-nighters.
- A route in. Strong performance can lead to an extended or permanent engagement. That's the outcome we're hoping for.
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Eligibility
You need existing right to work in the UK. We're a small company and can't sponsor visas, but if you're on a Student visa (working within your permitted hours) or the Graduate route, you're eligible, just tell us your situation and we'll work out a schedule that fits.
Some of our future defence workstreams may carry security requirements. That doesn't affect this role, and we'll have an open conversation with you if it ever becomes relevant.
How to apply
We review applications on a rolling basis and move quickly; there's no deadline, but the role closes when we find the right person, so earlier is better.
Apply here or send your CV to recruitment@blue-neptune.com with the subject line Materials & Process Engineer Intern
Process: 30-45 minute intro call with one/both founder → 30-45 minute technical conversation about your lab work. Two stages, usually inside two weeks of applying, and we'll give you a yes or no either way.
Blue Neptune is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team, and we assess every application on merit. We don't ask for salary history. If you need any adjustment to the process — to the interview format, the lab visit, or anything else - email us and we'll sort it out, no explanation needed.
We never ask for payment or financial details during hiring. All legitimate communication comes from @blue-neptune.com addresses.
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